Running Free
by Lost1n7heDark
Summary: Who knew that vampires could have prophetic dreams about Slayers, too? Slight Faith/Buffy. Oneshot. Rated for language.


**This is kind of new, different POV, but still has Faith/Buffy in it. A bit angsty, but you can get over it. **

**And just so we're clear,** **this is a dream.  
**

**Review.**

There is a new girl entering your mansion tonight.

You don't much like the look of her. She is wild and daring and different. Her wavy brown hair settles on the shoulders, as if she doesn't care what it looks like. A faded shirt with an unknown past slips tightly over her torso, and the leather pants are just as tight. Buckles tie a pair of combat boots firmly around her ankles. Danger, your mind screams.

She is carrying a stake and a knife, with a jacket thrown over her shoulder. Tossing it onto the tile, her head tilts slightly, looking directly at you.

"It looks the same." She says. You don't answer.

"Your room. Looks exactly like all the other guys I knew. I was hoping it'd be different."

"Where's Buffy?" You say.

"No surprise, really." She closes the door behind her. You are starting to feel trapped, more so than usual.

"I don't want you in here. I don't know you and you're dangerous." Your eyes narrow.

"And you've been partying. I can smell it."

She laughs and sits down on the step nearest to the door.

"And I'd do it again, if the beer was worth it. But don't worry: the people in this town are all idiots. Dumb as shit, every one." She lights a cigarette and inhales, smoke trailing from full and luscious lips, begging to stay captured inside the lusty mouth.

"Buffy. Tell them I want Buffy back."

"See, there's something we both want." She says with a grin. Looking around with obvious disdain at the gothic decoration on the walls, the lack of windows, and the chains that keep you from leaving.

"I didn't cheer for joy when they told me I had another place to go. Buffy's gone. Ran off somewhere with that G.I. Joe wannabe beyond this dump of a life. Didn't even leave a note. Xander's looking to bring her back. Don't bet on it, though. I say she's gone for good."

"Gone?" You remember when you met Buffy, younger then, and the innocence in her eyes. She had snared your heart that moment, long before she whispered her secrets in your ear and stabbed the sword through your heart.

The girl shrugs, her face hard.

"Quite the girl, Buffy was. Yours isn't the only broken heart in Sunnydale this morning."

* * *

She comes again in your home, same clothes, same smell, same everything. She locks the door behind her again, slumping into the same step as the night before.

"Xander's back, you hear?"

"Yes. They brought him to Willow to be healed."

"Heard his eye's damaged."

"Yes."

"He gonna be able to use it again?"

"Probably not."

"Some best friend."

"She didn't know."

"Were you there?" She puts out the cigarette on the palm of her hand.

"No. You were here in your fucking cage."

"Buffy would never have let them hurt him if she had known."

With that shit-eating grin you've learned to hate, she clasps her hands over her heart.

"Ah, his love is gone, but his vampy heart still is true."

You look at her, insides boiling.

"Does it make you so angry that Buffy is better than you?"

Her face colors.

"Or did you want him for yourself? Did you love the way he looked in his uniform?"

"I don't give a damn about the goody-boy and neither did she." She says furiously.

"It was a way _out_. A way out of Sunnydale, and seeing the same dumb fucks everyday, and dealing the same cards, and paying off the rent a day at a time, and remembering watching your mother drown herself at the bottom of a bottle."

"Buffy's mother doesn't drink." You say.

"Shut up." She's lit another one and makes patterns with the smoke in the air.

"Buffy wouldn't have left if she didn't love him." You say.

"You've got another big day ahead of you." She says, stepping towards you.

"Giles and Red are coming over for some more blood tests. Maybe, if you're lucky, they'll take you along to be their guinea pig for good. I might even have to stand near you with a stake at hand." She spits.

"You came to Sunnydale for love." She says. She looks around the bareness of your home, with its overbearing double doors and coolness of its marble walls.

"Look where it got you."

* * *

She slips in the next morning, when the dawn has hardly broken. She stares at the ground, her dirtied boots signifying a busy night. She never went to her own home, you realize.

"Sorry about yesterday." She speaks, the ever burning cigarette held to her lips.

"It was hard when the Mayor died." You say gently. The cigarette freezes mid air. Then continues to move.

"I forgot. You were there."

It begins to rain, and it drums against the roof of your mansion.

"What's it like to be saved?" She asks.

"Where you were before Angelus took over again? Does it feel good?"

"Yes." You reply, enchanted by the small light that proves her existence in the darkness.

"There's no pain, no guilt. Nothing holding you down, and all you have left is to move forward."

"Lonely?"

"No. Not then."

"Would you be, if you were redeemed again?"

"I don't know."

"No one to look after you. No one to bring you your daily Bloody Marys." She grins a little.

"It's not so bad, being a pet."

You flinch, a tremor rolling through your muscled body. There's a silence.

"Sorry. That was mean."

"It's true." You say.

She whittles away at her stake, concentrating on the perfect cuts, the solid movements of her hands.

"You've handled a lot of work." Your voice murmurs, thoughtfully.

"Had to, since my dad left..." She stops. There never had been any mention of her past before.

The chains make a clink as you stretch out your leg, pointing.

"There's something stuck in my leg. Think you could help get it out?"

"Yea." She comes nearer and with her knife, digs out a large splinter.

"There."

"Buffy wouldn't have done that, you know. She would've called Giles."

She throws the splinter into the darkness and listens for the clatter as it hits the ground.

"She wouldn't want to hurt you." She stands there for a moment, contemplating what to do, and doesn't look at you. She returns to her step.

"You know what? I don't blame him. I'd have left us, too, if I were him. Guess that makes me a shitty kid."

"It's not wrong to want to be free." You say softly. You can hear her teeth clench and she drags on the filter and snorts with disgust.

"Thought it was wrong to walk out on the people who count on you. I mean, what about them? The ones that are left behind? What happens to the ones who can't just choose to be free? Should I have run off without a word even though I didn't know when Mom was coming back? **If** she was coming back? Should I have left Buffy and the Scooby gang without a word of apology? And now? Do I stay in this fucking prison and watch the sky get smaller and smaller until I'm just too plain scared to run off again?" Her drawling, husky voice has become desperate.

"I'm scared, Angel. I'm scared of being alone."

"You want her." Realization smashing into your mind like a two by four. How could you have missed it?

"Yea. I guess I do."

* * *

She returns again at night, quietly and swiftly.

Entering your home once more, doors creaking loudly, she steps surely towards you. With swift kicks she breaks through the chains and pulls you up, and walks out. You follow her, silently. When you step outside, your eyes close immediately, trying to hold back the tears you want to cry. You forgot how beautiful the night sky was. It's cold, but neither of you notice.

"You're not staying." Your voice is softer than velvet.

"I'm not cut to stay, Angel. You of all people know that." She replies before turning to face you.

"I'll settle down someday, Soul boy. I swear it."

"Where? When?"

"I don't know. Wherever the wind takes me, I guess." She chuckles lightly, shaking her head.

"Me and my goddamn wind themes." Both of you laugh gently.

"Jesus, it's colder than Hell tonight. I told myself I wouldn't be long. I'll miss the bus if I do." She rubs her arms and shifts the duffel bag on her shoulder. She backs away from the mansion, from you, slowly but surely.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" You look at her, lifting your hands knowingly. She shakes her head.

"I don't think so."

You follow her to the edge of the grass.

"I don't want you to get in trouble." You say.

"I'm always in trouble." She grins in response. Lifting her hands to your face, she kisses your cheek, and her lips murmur into your ear.

"Live, Angel. Be free." She turns and runs.

"Will you see her again?" You yell out. She stops and turns slightly, not quite facing you.

"Do you want to?" You ask.

"Yes." She says.

"Even if it's only once. Even if it's not until I'm old and settled and about to die. I want to see her again." She turns a little more.

"You think I will?"

"I don't know."

"That's hard." She shivers, facing the darkness of the woods before her, and her voice is no more than a whisper.

"I can love, too, you know."

You know she feels the touch of your breath on the back of her neck, but she doesn't dare face you and let you see her crying.

"I know." You say softly.

"I know."


End file.
